Letter from Camilo Pérez: The Passion for Freedom is Stronger than Any Cage

April 19, 2011 Anarchist News

Words from comrade Camilo Perez, from libertadalos14a & translated by War
on Society:

The Passion for Freedom is Stronger than Any Cage

“(…) it’s about that spirit of combativeness
without which even anarchists are left tame
and will drop off, by one route or another, to the swamp of legalism…
It is foolish, for the sake of saving a life, to destroy the reasons to live”
-Errico Malatesta, “L’Agitacione,” 1901

In this “bombs case” that seeks to annihilate us, what is being persecuted
is not a philosophy that is petrified in history, because ideas without
practice are not dangerous; what power intends to judge is a way of facing
life, and without seeming pretentious, today as in centuries past what the
State intends to judge is the potential threat of Anarchy; this is one of
the inevitable clashes between two opposing forces.

This letter is a call to combat the lethargy of words, to not sink into
the decidedness of the devoted and obedient sheep; this is a call to heed
instinct, for the resurgence of convictions in immense forms, that every
blow may strengthen the temper of rage and the undying rebellious will of
which flesh and fire are made.

The gestures of solidarity crack the walls and saw through the bars, the
anonymous cries made heard as resounding thunder.

In this “Week of Agitation and Propaganda” (April 14 to 21), I wish to
send my respects to all the prisoners of war* of the world, to those who
realize that the cages are not caves for revolutionary hibernation, but
rather another place of confrontation against authority.

For all the irreducible enemies of power, mark my little wink of complicity.

May the brothers and sisters who fly free know that they are not
forgotten, may their wings carry them far from their cages. Courage,
Comrades!

Strength to all.

For Living Anarchy, onward I cry, “Long Live Anarchy!”

Crazy Old Man, Anarchic Rebel on Hunger Strike.
From the Indomitable Roots of South America.
13th of April, 2001

* translator’s note: “lax presxs en guerra,” means more literally
“prisoners at war,” and thus conveys Camilo’s idea of the struggle within
prison more effectively than the common English term “prisoners of war,”
which we chose for its familiarity.